Tag Archives: Tandem

One of the most visited pages on our website over the last year is our Xtra-long bike page. There’s not many manufacturers that make bicycles for 3 or more people, and for some reason, there’s a lot of families interested in them right now.

Even with all of that interest, some people have a hard time committing to owning one of these creations. There are a few obstacles that can make these bikes impractical to own. These were all things that I struggled with too before I designed the Xtra-long bike that my family rode for 6 fun years. I thought I should share my experiences and let you all know why we make our Xtra-long bikes the way we do. There are some Rodriguez differences that can save you thousands of dollars. If done right, your experience can be amazing, and can create great bicycle memories for you and your family to look back on. I know this personally.

So, let’s get down to business. Here’s the objections most people have to actually jumping in and buying one of these bikes.

1.) How do I store it?
A bicycle built for 3 is too long to hang on a ceiling hook. One built for 4 or 5 can be up to 15 feet long. Where’s that going to go?

2.) How do I transport it?
There are lots of ways to transport a single, or even a tandem. But a triple, quad, or quint is so long that it won’t fit on top of a car or in the back of a pickup truck.

3.) It’s such a specialty bike. Will it get ridden enough to make it worth the price?
Most people who want a triple, quad or quint already own single bikes and a tandem. So, adding another expensive bike that will only be ridden if all parties are available seems impractical.

You can benefit from our experience

After years of building bicycles for 2, 3, 4 and 5, we’ve learned a thing or two. We are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, of the Xtra-long bicycle manufacturers still building in the U.S.

My family rode a bicycle built for 4 for several years while my kids were young, so I have a lot of experience in the subject. These are all things that I struggled with before we built our quad. The solution: S&S couplers and some Rodriguez ingenuity.

Let me tackle these obstacles one at a time.

1.) Storage: This one is very easy to solve. Every Xtra-long Rodriguez includes at least enough S&S couplers to take the bike into 2 parts quickly and easily. Having two halves makes storage much easier (take it from someone who knows). There is no extra charge on our Xtra-long bikes to have this feature.

2.) Transporting the bike: Another huge benefit for the S&S couplers in your new Rodriguez Xtra-long bike is transporting it. In my case, I simply took the bike in half (takes about 2 minutes), and was able to easily fit it in my little clam-shell style tandem hauler. I could fit the whole quad in there, as well as my road bike, the kids bikes, and all of our luggage for any trip we took. If I didn’t want to use the trailer, I could easily haul the bike as a tandem on my tandem rack, and the other 2 sections were small enough to put in the back of the van behind the rear seat.

Having enough couplers to take the bike into 2 parts is a must for all of our Xtra-long bike customers, and that’s why we include at least enough couplers for that to happen at no charge.

3.) It’s such a specialty bike, will it get ridden enough?
This is certainly an important consideration for most families, and was for us as well. Truth be told, if I would’ve just built a quad for our family, I don’t think it would have been ridden enough to make it worth it. Sure, we could’ve saved a little money up front, but it would be really expensive in the end. Read on…

This is where Rodriguez ingenuity really comes in. I designed our bike to be easily convertible from 2, to 3, to 4 in just minutes. Here at Rodriguez, we have a staff of rare birds, so anything is possible. The frame shop team can build just about anything, so this was no challenge at all to build.

This turned out to be the best money spent. As it turned out, most of the riding we did on this bike was done as a tandem. Even on vacation, I left the bike set up as a tandem and we did morning rides as a couple. Then, if the weather was good, and the kids wanted to ride, I made it into a quad. We could do a leisurely family ride into town and have ice cream. If one kid preferred to stay at Grandma’s house instead of riding, we left that section out of the bike. It was like owning a tandem, a triple and a quad, but a lot less hassle (and expense).

The Wrap-up and Recommendations

Make sure your Xtra-long bike is a vacation bike
Had we just built it as a quad only, then I don’t think I would’ve bothered taking it on vacation with us. The tandem is a must, as are the single bikes. So, how would I take all of those bikes, as well as the quad? Answer: I wouldn’t have. That would’ve been a shame, because it turned out that the most fun we had with this bike was on vacations.

Instead, it went on every vacation we took from 2006 ~ 2013, and was ridden in some configuration just about every day on those vacations.

Riding into Rupert, Idaho for the 4th of July parade on a quad was a blast for us and the kids. Believe me, cars slow down when they see a quad, and they usually roll the windows and start asking questions (which the kids love to answer). Riding through the Idaho farmlands as a family ‘racing’ Grandma and Grandpa on their tandem made for some lifelong memories. Then, while Grandma and Grandpa kept the kids for a few days, Marcie and I could take the tandem and spend the time in Sun Valley riding the trails up there.

Riding into Rupert for the annual 4th of July parade in 2007. Photo Courtesy of Grandma Sally

At home, we left the bike as a tandem for our morning rides. It was our only tandem. We didn’t need multiple bikes. On weekends through the summer, I often put it back into quad mode and we went for an evening ride. Again, ice cream, dinner, coffee shop, you name it. Riding with the kids is quite a bit different than the 2 of us riding as a couple.

Had I built it as a quad only, this would’ve been the only riding it ever got. Instead, it got ridden several times per week as a tandem, occasionally as a quad around town, and almost every day of our vacations. Like we say, a bicycle that gets ridden is a happy bicycle.

Would we do it again?
Yes, absolutely! Our kids have outgrown the quad, and it was sold in 2014 for someone else to enjoy. But the memories live on. The only thing I would’ve done differently is that I wish we would’ve done it 3 years earlier. Having 3 more years to enjoy the family quad rides would be something we would cherish. That being said, I really loved the 6 years we had on the bike, and if it’s in your budget, I highly recommend it.

Back on Point
Obstacles to owning an Xtra-long bike: As you can see, all of these obstacles can easily be overcome here at Rodriguez. It might cost a little more up front, but it certainly saves a lot of money to have one bike that can serve as your everyday tandem, your vacation bike, as well as your Xtra-long family bike. Not to mention the added bonus of strorage and transportation.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this clears up some of those nagging questions so you can go ahead and order your Rodriguez Xtra-long bike 😉

Counting on you fingers
There are a lot of custom bicycle builders in the world. That list shrinks quite a bit when you look for custom tandem builders. Now, you can probably count on your fingers the number of shops that can build you a bicycle for three. Think about it….how many can you think of? Now, think of how many shops will build you a bicycle built for 4 or even 5! These are what we call Extra-Long bicycles. Is your list shrinking?

Now for the really hard stuff!
Add convertibility to the mix . What is ‘convertibility’? It’s the ability to make your Extra-Long bicycle easily convert to a bike for 3 or 2 riders. How cool is that? The number of builders that have accomplished this you can count on just one hand now.

But wait! I’m not finished. Now for the icing on the cake. How about an Extra-Long bicycle that will convert all the way down to a regular bicycle built for one? The list of builders who’ve done this can probably be counted on one finger….Rodriguez Bicycle Company of Seattle.

You won’t see much about our company in magazines or online bicycle tech sites. For some reason, they don’t take much notice of what we’ve been doing out here in Seattle for the last years now. If you’ve heard of us, it’s probably because someone you ran into along the way recommended our shop. Maybe you needed something very specific, and another shop sent you our way. (Many thanks to all of you who are getting the word out.) When it comes to the extra-ordinary, we’ve done just about everything possible with a bicycle. The crew here is the best there is.

Now about this amazing bike
This particular project was really cool. In 2002 we built one of our exclusive Rodriguez 8-ball convertible tandem/single bikes for a couple here in Seattle. This specific bike sports the very first Rodriguez bottle opener. The one on this bike was actually made by hand here in the shop at the request of the customer. I liked it so much that I traced the shape on a piece of paper, and then imported it to my computer. Then we had them custom cut for us by a company here in Seattle, and have ever since.

This Fall, that couple approached me about building a couple of sections for their children. This is something that we’ve done before, so we came up with a plan for them. They also wanted to upgrade the shifting to Rohloff and put the drag brake on the front wheel in the form of a Sturmey Archer drum brake.

…instead, it’ll be where it should be, with its new owner starting a life of challenging bicycle rides and tours! As a matter of fact, you won’t see any of our bicycles there. Instead, we’ll be right where we should be….designing, building and painting these custom creations. If you follow my blog, then you know why we don’t attend…if not, here you go.

Last month, I wrote about some of the incredibly unique Rodriguez bikes we built in 2014. Well, here we go again! 2015 is off to an amazing custom start as well!

More Custom than Custom!

This bike is pretty special, and I think you’ll agree after you’ve viewed the post. It’s a combination of our new Rodriguez Model 2014 tandem, our famous Rodriguez 6-pack, and our old standard, the Rodriguez 8-ball convertible (an invention of ours from the 1990’s that I wrote about last year). So, basically, this puppy is a micro travel bike, and a micro travel tandem all in one. Chances are that you won’t see anything this challenging to design and build at any bike show you’ll attend (sorry show attendees). That’s OK though, you can see the whole thing in detailed photos right here on our website because…well…it’s 2015, right?

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. If that’s true, then I’m not sure how to take the fact that it took 17 years for another company to imitate our unique Rodriguez 8-ball design.

Last week, a couple flew in to Seattle to visit our shop. They had recently attended a trade show where a manufacturer was displaying a tandem design that, through the use of S&S couplings, could convert into a single bike. Not only that, but when asking around, they discovered that even another company was talking about introducing a similar design. Now, as you may or may not know, we don’t attend trade shows anymore, but none-the-less I was surprised after all these years to hear that other companies were attempting this challenging design. After noticing that the hits on the Rodriguez 8-ball page were about 20 times their norm, I thought a blog post was due.

Evolution with intelligent design:
The first Rodriguez 8-ball was built in 1997 (that’s seventeen years ago as I write this article) and put in our printed catalog for 1999. Over this course of time, we have learned a lot on how to improve the design, and even evolved two more completely different 8-ball designs that accommodate different needs and desires of the 8-ball customer. I’ll cover the different frame designs and their features later in this post, but first let’s step into the wayback machine and study the history of this bike….or should I say bikes.

The history of this design:
As with most Rodriguez unique creations, there were several minds involved to come up with this design. We first started using S&S couplings to make travel bikes in 1996, and it dawned on me that we might be able to make a single/tandem convertible using these. I talked it over a bit with Matt, our head builder at the time, but we couldn’t resolve how to get the rear triangle connected effectively….and then what to do with the cables and getting them to be a seamless transition….etc… We put the idea to rest until John (our head mechanic in the mid 1990’s) showed me a drawing of a bike he wanted to have us build the he could use for travel, tandem, single, and bikepacking. There it was! He had drawn up a sketch of a frame that converted from single to tandem and solved the rear triangle issues. We built the bike, and solved the cable transitions as we built, and it all worked out perfectly. That year at Seattle Bike Expo (we used to do trade shows) John spent the weekend demonstrating this unique creation as he converted it to tandem, to single, and back again for the show goers.

Round 2:
About this same time, Author/Adventure cyclist Willie Weir was planning his trip to Cuba. Willie planned to take something extra along with him on this trip…..his new wife. They wanted to ride a tandem through Cuba. “No problem there” we said, “we can make a travel tandem for you to take on the plane.” “There is a problem though” Willie said, “It will just be by myself for the first leg of the trip, and Kat will join me later”. “What will I do with my single bike when she shows up with the tandem?” Little did he know, we had already solved his problem. I told him about the Rodriguez 8-ball that we had built for John, and he was intrigued. So, we sketched up a bike for them that he could ride as a single for the first leg of the trip, and then Kat could join him mid way and they could continue on through Cuba via tandem….8-ball style.

Willie tells the story of the salivating faces of the cab drivers in Cuba as an American woman shows up with a large box, and here’s Willie to pick her up at the airport on just a bicycle! The cab fair from Heaven, right? Wrong. You see, the box that Kat was carrying contained her luggage and the center section of their new Rodriguez 8-ball. Imagine the surprise on the cab driver’s faces as Willie takes his bike apart and adds the center section. After a few moments, they load the panniers on the freshly converted bike and ride away (waving to the cab drivers). Willie says that the drivers actually all applauded as they rode past. Read more of Willie’s adventures in one of his fascinating (and funny) books available at willieweir.com

Willie and Kat’s 8-ball in Cuba (1998) looking much better than the building behind it.

More 8-ball fun:
After Willie’s bike, we built several more 8-ball convertibles. Each one different from the last. In 2003, we had one of our 8-ball customers call up and ask if we could build a third section for their 8-ball…making it a triple, double, single. “Why not?” I said, so off we went. It was fun, and a lot easier than we thought to make the 3rd section work well. Here’s a few shots of it.

Focus Please
But I digress. This article is about tandems that convert to singles. A subject that we know a lot about. As time went on, the Rodriguez 8-ball became a cult favorite. Each one dawned its own nickname….like Brian and Sue’s ‘Mama Cass’…or Charles and Rose Ann’s ‘Study in Orange’.. or the ‘Trickel Nickel’. I can’t leave out Mike and Angela’s ‘Big Blue’. I could go on and on about the fun customers that have Rodriguez 8-ball convertibles.

Even though the 8-ball was a success, there were customers who wanted one that couldn’t get one because of sizing restrictions. These restrictions brought about 2 new Rodriguez 8-ball designs

Why a new design was needed:
The one problem with the original design was the fact that the riders had to have similar saddle heights in order for the design to work properly. If not, then either the stoker had no stand-over clearance, or the captain’s seat couldn’t be raised high enough. The top tube had to be level. For a lot of people, this is fine, but for others, this didn’t work well.

In a traditional tandem design, we slope the top tube in order to give more stand-over clearance for the back rider, and get the seat tube long enough for the front rider. Over the years, I had drawn up a couple of frame designs that addressed this issue and had them ready for when someone needed that solution. It wasn’t until 2009 when we had our first taker on one of the new designs.

You can see a comparison of the 3 different Rodriguez 8-ball designs here.

In these two new designs, the rear triangle detaches and and re-attaches to the captains seat tube. This means that we can slope the top tube like a standard tandem, and the rider’s seat heights are completely un-important in the frame design any longer. There are ups and downs of each design, but suffice it to say that any of these designs are a challenge for any builder to execute well.

Here’s an example of design #2 that we built in 2009

Conclusion
I wrote this article to explain how this bike came to be, and show the evolution of the design. I think that it’s worth mentioning that this is a very challenging design, and each 8-ball is a completely unique creation. While we welcome other manufacturers to the party, we want to let the general public know that the convertible tandem/single is not a new creation, but has been alive and well for 17 years now at Rodriguez Bicycle Company.

The attention that’s being paid to it now is long overdue I say. Thanks John, Matt, David, Todd and Dennis for all your contributions as well as all the other team members here at Rodriguez who’ve put in the time and thought to make these incredible designs successful. We wish all of our 8-ball customers many years of happy cycling! And to those of you in the market today for such an animal….why not consider the most experienced team in the industry to build your Rodriguez 8-ball convertible?